1. Field of the Invention
A rack loaded, radiant heated, cantilevered deck baking oven to be used for baking or roasting.
2. Description of the Related Art
Radiant heated baking ovens are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,215,266 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,503,837. Shown in those patents are discrete deck radiant heated ovens.
Baking at point of purchase markets is performed by one of two technologies, (1) Convection baking, accomplished by passing large volumes of heated air across proofed dough, and (2) Radiant baking, accomplished by baking proofed dough in a stationary thermal gradient between two heated decks.
Baking by convection, is faster and requires less handling than does baking by radiant heating. A typical convection oven is large enough to accept a caster mounted rack on which pans of bread are mounted. The rack is placed in the oven, and the rack, with its pans of proofed dough, is rotated about a vertical axis in front of jets of heated air. The large volume of heated air required, removes moisture from the bread, shortening the bread's shelf life and storage life.
Baking by radiation, requires establishing a stable thermal gradient through the bread to be baked and then maintaining that thermal gradient until the bread is baked. The temperature at the top of the bread must be high enough to brown the bread. Baking temperature must be maintained through the body of the bread. Drying is not a problem with radiant baking. Adding moisture is not necessary. Shelf life of radiant baked bread is longer than shelf life of bread baked by convection.
A typical radiant baking oven comprises discrete heated decks, mounted one above the other, each deck having its own door or group of doors. The decks have back, sides, top and bottom. Access to the heated deck is through a single door or through group of doors.
Trays of proofed bread dough are placed on the heated deck. The trays remain in the oven, within an established thermal gradient until the bread is baked and browned. Baking in such an oven requires multiple handling of trays and opening and closing of oven doors.
This invention is a rack loading, radiant heated, deck oven with cantilevered baking decks. Open sided baking chambers are used to bake the bread. By leaving a space between the sides of the decks and the oven wall, the oven can be loaded by a rack loaded with pans of bread.
It is an object of the invention to provide a baking oven that can use racks for loading pans of bread for baking, using radiant baking technology.
It is an object of the invention to provide a baking oven that does not require rotation of the rack during baking.
It is an object of the invention to provide a rack loading oven of substantially smaller external dimensions than convection ovens.
It is an object of the invention to provide a radiant heated baking oven, that can be loaded with single baking pans and can bake product on a single hand loaded baking pan on a single deck, or back a rack of multiple pans per deck. This oven can be hand loaded or rack loaded.
It is an object of the invention to mount the heat sensors inside the heated decks, to eliminate breakage of the sensors.
It is an object of invention to locate a sensor within each deck to control the amount of heat provided by each deck.
It is an object of the invention to provide a radiant heated baking oven sensitive to internal air currents.